A Massive Tax Is The Winning “Conservative” Solution To Hotcoldwetdry Or Something

I’m not sure that George Shultz and Ted Halstead understand what an American Conservative actually is. I’m kinda doubting that Shultz’s old boss, Ronald Reagan would approve of a massive new federal tax. But, they keep pushing this. I have many posts on these Useful Idiots, such as here and here, the latter in the same Washington Post which is giving Shultz a platform yet again

The winning conservative climate solution

The Republican Party’s position on climate change is rapidly evolving, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) saying that we need conservative solutions and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) warning that the party ignores the issue at its own peril. Just Thursday, House Republican leadership, in its first policy conference of the year, presented a new climate strategy to GOP House members.

The newfound Republican climate position can be summarized as follows: The climate problem is real, the Green New Deal is bad and the GOP needs a proactive climate solution of its own. Our big question is what form it should take.

There are essentially three ways to reduce emissions — regulations, subsidies and pricing. The first is the worst of all options for a party committed to free markets and limited government. Many Republican legislators are, therefore, gravitating toward the second option: tax credits and research-and-development spending to promote innovation. Those now introducing legislation along these lines deserve praise.

Republicans are correct to focus on clean-energy innovation as a crucial driver of climate progress. But while subsidies are an important steppingstone in fostering nascent technologies, they are hardly the best way to stimulate innovation across the whole economy. As numerous studies show, subsidies are a costly means to drive clean tech deployment at scale, requiring ever-higher taxes and deficits to get the job done.

The winning Republican climate answer is the third option: carbon pricing. Just as a market-based solution is the Republican policy of choice on most issues, so should it be on climate change. A well-designed carbon fee checks every box of conservative policy orthodoxy. Not surprisingly, this is the favored option of corporate America and economists — including all former Republican chairs of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.

So, wait, “carbon pricing”, which is essentially a tax, won’t drive up costs? Good luck with that. As I noted when he last pimped it in the WP and how it works

Each and every one of these things gives the Central Government more control of citizens, private entities, the energy sector, and the economy. Furthermore, it makes citizens more reliant and dependent on government, because the Helpful Hand of Government will refund some of the money lost to the taxes, fees, and cost of living increases.

Is this something Reagan would have supported? Or, would he have said “where’s the rock hard scientific evidence that Mankind is mostly/solely responsible for this? Let’s see it. Oh, you only have supposition, computer models, fear mongering, and looking into a crystal ball?”

Further, he might have asked why the people pushing this the hardest have the biggest carbon footprints. Why they don’t match their lives with their rhetoric. And why they seem to be pushing their beliefs on Everyone Else. Not particularly American Conservative, which is really Classical Liberalism, with the notion that “the government that governs least governs best.”

The Republican plan should be transparent along with what the Warmists want:  “we’re going to tax and fee the hell out of citizens. We’re going to restrict your movement, dictate what you can buy, what you can eat, where you can live. We’re going to take over the energy sector and the economy. We’re going to skyrocket your cost of living. Limit you to one child. Maybe. It depends on your Beliefs. But, your leaders can do whatever they want. Y’all are good with that plan, right? Wait, you’re not? We thought you cared! No? Oh, you only care in theory, not practice. OK. Never mind.”